Stillwater Man Charged With Stealing Handgun At Perkins Auction

(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Stillwater man on probation for drunk driving has been charged with stealing a pistol on Saturday at a Perkins auction in which a reserve sheriff’s deputy was in control of firearms on display for sale.

Steven Joe Hutchinson, 55, who was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, was arrested at 1:22 p.m. Saturday at the auction site at 8011 S. Perkins Road, according to an affidavit by Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Tomm Edwards.

Hutchinson was later released on a personal recognizance bond pending his initial court appearance this week on a two-count charge, court records show.

While Hutchinson was being patted down Saturday prior to being put in a patrol car, he said, “Why did I do that, it was stupid,” the sheriff’s deputy alleged in his affidavit.

When the deputy said he would read him his rights before speaking to him, “Hutchinson stated, ‘there was no need for that. I took the gun from the table and ran,'” the affidavit alleged.

After the deputy was dispatched to the auction site Saturday regarding a possible theft, he saw Payne County Reserve Deputy Marvin Abbott and several others standing with a man who appeared to be in restraints, the affidavit said.

“Abbott stated he had been at the auction where the firearms were being sold when he heard someone yell ‘stop him — he stole a pistol.’ Abbott stated he and the others started to chase the suspect,” later identified as Hutchinson, the affidavit alleged.

A witness said he was at the auction site when “he observed a white male with a grey t-shirt and glasses hanging around his neck take a pistol from the table and place it in his pants and attempted to run away,” the affidavit alleged.

He and another man chased the suspect south from the auction site where the suspect dropped the gun and the other man secured it, the affidavit alleged. That man said “the suspect acted as if he was going to strike, so he pushed him to the ground and held him until others arrived,” the affidavit alleged.

The owner of the 9 mm handgun “stated she had brought the firearm to the auction site to sell it,” the affidavit alleged. The gun was photographed and returned to the owner by the deputy, the affidavit said.

Hutchinson, who has three prior convictions for drunk driving in Payne County, was placed on eight years’ probation in his latest case in 2017. Hutchinson had received five years’ probation in 2009 and 1995 for DUIs, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.